Football coach with ALS to get ‘Extreme Makover' home

By Larry Hartstein and Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Inspiring high school football coach Jeremy Williams and his family just got a pleasant surprise.

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will team up with volunteers, including NFL player Michael Oher, to build them a new house this week, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported Monday.

Williams is the coach who led Greenville High to the second round of the state playoffs while battling ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Greenville is a school of 380 students in Meriweather County.

Oher is the football player whose story is told in the film "The Blind Side."

The new home will be built while Williams and his family vacation at the Adaptive Sports Center in Crested Butte, Colo., the Ledger-Enquirer reported. Williams' son, Jacob, was born with spina bifida and likely will remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

The family's current home isn't suited to people with disabilities, according to a statement the show released to the newspaper, and the home has a cracked foundation and mold-infected walls.

The Ledger-Enquirer reported crews will unveil the new home Saturday.

The upbeat Williams plans to coach in 2010 despite the irreversible effects of his illness. ALS has sapped his hand and arm muscles, makes him walk with a limp and causes him to slur some words.

"I don't think there could be a better deserving family to get something this great," Brookstone coach Blair Harrison told the newspaper. "I just hope that whatever construction is done enables the family not to worry about their living conditions at all."

The ABC show has not announced when the Williams episode will air.